Tag Archives: islamic nations

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Liar, Liar

Obama is acting like desperate salesmen before a conceited tourist.

Philip Giraldi, November 18, 2010

President Barack Obama’s speech in Indonesia in which he conceded that the United States must do more to establish a good working relationship with many Muslim nations would have ranked as one of the more pathetic performances by an American president in recent years but for the fact that there have been so many awful performances to choose from.  The president’s grammar and syntax were perfect and the speech was cleverly crafted, exactly what we have come to expect.  It was replete with carefully designed pauses, Indonesian words and phrases, and some self deprecating humor, but it was characteristically bloodless and completely tone deaf.  One almost longed to see Bill Clinton choking up and shedding a tear or two.

Obama’s spin team made a heroic effort to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.  They likened the Indonesia speech to his Cairo offering seventeen months ago, in which he likewise committed his administration to establishing a new, more convivial modality for dealing with Islamic nations.  That speech was received respectfully and even positively in many quarters, but this time no one was fooled.  It’s funny how a year and a half of inaction and even retreat can reshape how someone thinks.  One Indonesian commented afterwards “What will Obama do in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If we don’t see any progress, what he says is just a speech.”

Obama’s offering was full of the usual bromides, about how respectful he is of Islam and its traditions.  He even touched on Israel-Palestine, not surprisingly blaming both sides for not taking the necessary courageous steps to find peace.  It is a familiar argument for American audiences who are used to hearing that the conflict is bilateral, but did not go down well in Indonesia where the listeners are all too aware of the details of the brutal Israeli occupation.

What Obama should have said was that it has now become clear that Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has no desire for any peace agreement that does not provide for perpetual and absolute Israeli dominance over the Palestinians.  He should have added that he knows that Netanyahu has nothing but contempt for him personally in the wake of the midterm election debacle and he might also observe that his ability to act independently is conditioned by the Israel Lobby so he can do nothing to help the Palestinians achieve statehood or even to recover a measure of dignity under Israeli occupation.  He might admit that he has now been reduced to offering multi-billion dollar bribes of military equipment to Israel just to tempt it to suspend some settlement activity for ninety day.  Obama’s words would not have changed reality on the ground, but at least he would have told the truth for a change and the candor would have been refreshing.

If Obama wants to establish some kind of modus vivendi with the Islamic world he must speak to it in language that it understands and not lie about things that all Muslims know to be true.  And it is also past time that he begin to speak the truth to the American people also.  His administration’s retreat from any confrontation with Israel in an attempt to make a recalcitrant Netanyahu conform even to minimal standards of behavior confirms what all the world already knows:  Israel will act and the United States will follow, even if those actions will inflict grave damage on the American people and on the US national interest.

And what will that mean for the United States?  It means that the decision about going to war for the US is essentially controlled by Israel because Tel Aviv can start a conflict with Iran at any time that will quickly draw Washington in.  Those who think that the White House still is managing the situation are completely naïve.  There is no indication that the Obama administration has warned Israel against bombing Iran because the US has no cards to play, having ruled out exerting any sort of economic or military pressure on Netanyahu. And there should be no doubt that an attack by Israel on an Iranian nuclear facility would trigger Iranian retaliation and immediate calls in Congress and the media to support Tel Aviv, leaving the president no option but to enter the conflict.  A third war in the region would mean goodbye to any American ability to disengage from the other conflicts that are bleeding the US white and would possibly lead to even more dire consequences if neighbors like nuclear armed Pakistan and India somehow enter the fray.

Bibi Netanyahu surely understands that the cost to the United States in lives and treasure from war with Iran could potentially be catastrophic but it is a price he is willing to pay as his own people and economy would largely be spared, at least initially.  No American leader should tolerate such a situation but, deplorably, those who have spoken out at all on the Middle East have lined up behind the Israelis as if they were part of the United States, or even more esteemed than any of the fifty states. Vice President Joe Biden told the Jewish Federations of North America annual gathering in New Orleans last week that “the ties between our two countries are literally unbreakable” and described how he is “absolutely certain that our support for Israel must continue … forever,” echoing similar statements made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama.  Biden knows full well that Israeli and US interests do not coincide and his comments amount to political pandering of the worst sort.  It is even more disconcerting to think that he might actually mean what he says.

Meanwhile Steny Hoyer, who calls himself a Zionist and frequently expresses his love for Israel, and has spoken of “our responsibility to stand by Israel and the Jewish people,” is poised to take over as Minority Whip in the House of Representatives.  On the other side of the aisle, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Eric Cantor are unrelenting advocates of Israel who are about to step into senior positions in the Republican dominated congress.  Cantor recently met privately with Bibi Netanyahu and said the Republican Party would serve “as a check on” the Obama Administration over its policies in the Middle East. Then “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.” In other words, Cantor was meeting with the leader of a foreign country and promising to do whatever he could to influence and even subvert the foreign policy of his own country.  Think about that one for a minute or two.

And while Cantor, Hoyer, Biden and company are ceding US national security to the Israelis, who actually is calling the shots on shaping American policy?  None other than the redoubtable Dennis Ross, perched in the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region.  Ross, who has been described as Israel’s lawyer, is poison in the very heart of the policy making apparatus. He recently spoke at an AIPAC Conference in Hollywood Florida where he said “Just last week, I participated in the US-Strategic Dialogue, a biannual event that includes a comprehensive exchange of views on regional issues crucial to both the United State and Israel. But more importantly, the Strategic Dialogue is just one of many, ongoing, and high-level exchanges that occur regularly between the United States in Israel. I’m not aware of another country that we engage more regularly on such a wide range of issues. These types of exchanges not only provide opportunities for discussion of ideas on policy, but they also help solidify connections between our two governments. Over the last two years, I have seen four-star generals, intelligence officers, and high-ranking diplomats all develop personal relationships with their Israeli counterparts. Frankly, this degree of coordination is unprecedented. I have participated in these types of discussions for the last 30 years, and they have never been as intense or focused, reflecting the serious cooperation that we have today with Israel. But our commitment to Israel’s security is defined not by talk. It is defined by the kinds of actions and deeds that help make both of our countries safer and stronger in the face of common threats.”

So if you doubt that the United States is tied hand and foot to Israel in terms of its ability to take independent action in the Middle East, just listen to what Dennis Ross, Joe Biden, and Eric Cantor are saying.  Does it sound like they are articulating policies beneficial to the US?  They are insisting that Americans have to support Israel unquestioningly no matter what it does and are little more than advocates for monsters like Bibi Netanyahu, pure and simple.  The word Quisling comes to mind when one thinks of them and also Hoyer and Ros-Lehtinen.  If their failure to be truly loyal to the country that has nurtured them brings about a new war in which many of their fellow citizens will die, their actions and posturing should be defined by one and all as treason.  If America is to be taken back in a new revolution that will lead to a restoration of the vision of the Founding Fathers it will only take place after the betrayers of our constitution are removed from government, every single one of them.  When American politicians and senior government officials speak of their love of a foreign government that pursues policies inimical to US values and interests they should be disowned by every true patriot and also by every respectable media outlet.  It should be grounds for their immediate removal.


This article first appeared in Antiwar.com. Republished with the author’s permission
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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Saudi Arabia’s betrayal to the Islamic world

Muslim World Distribution, Sunni, Shia (Islam 101)

Kourosh Ziabari, 6 July 2010

The corrupt king of Saudi Arabia Malek Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz whose clandestine connections with the families of Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush have made him a notorious and unpopular figure in the Islamic world has recently made unbelievably controversial remarks which leaved no doubt that this tyrannical monarch is moving towards ushering himself as the new stooge of the United States in the Persian Gulf region.

The Saudi King who has seemingly started attempts to merge his country with the imperialist world told the French Defense Minister Hervé Morin in a meeting held after the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre that “two states in region do not deserve to exist: Israel and Iran.”

Juxtaposed with the impolite and uncompromising mistreatment of the Iranian pilgrims by the Saudi police forces in Mecca and Medina, the bizarre and unprecedented remarks of the Saudi tyrant whose monarchy has been described as “head-chopping, hand-severing, anti-feminist, misogynist, feudal [and] anti-democratic” by Robert Fisk highlighted the Arab kingdom’s decisiveness to distance itself from the union of Islamic nations and join the bloc of imperialist governments.

So, let’s pose some vital questions. Does the Saudi king really deserve the title of the Custodian of Two Holy Mosques, which he has assigned to himself? Does this corrupt monarch really care about the Islamic solidarity?

In an article titled “The Kingdom of Corruption, the Saudi Connection”, the British Pakistani author and historian Tariq Ali wrote about the undiscovered and unseen realities of Saudi Arabia intelligently: “In normal times the Saudi Kingdom is barely covered by the Western media. The Ambassadors report to their respective chanceries that all is well and the continuity of the regime is not threatened. It requires the imprisonment of an American or British citizen or for a British nurse to be chucked out of a window for attention to focus on the regime in Riyadh.”

“Even less is known about the state religion, which is not an everyday version of Sunni or Shia Islam, but a peculiarly virulent, ultra-puritanical strain known as Wahhabism. This is the religion of the Saudi royals, the state bureaucracy, the army and air-force and, of course, Osama Bin Laden, the best-known Saudi citizen in the world, currently resident in Afghanistan” he adds.

Tariq Ali accurately pinpointed the root of Saudi extremism: Wahhabism, an artificially manufactured denomination of Islam which authorizes the killing of Shiite Muslims as a means of entering the heaven. The very fact that Shiite Muslims are subject to the most vicious and cruel mistreatments of fanatic Wahabis in Saudi Arabia is almost known to everyone.

Although the Shiites constitute a 15% minority of the Saudi Arabia’s 20-million population, they’re simply deprived of the most basic rudiments of a normal life and an equal right to practice their particular rites and rituals. The social situation is also the same for Shiite Saudis. According to Amir Taheri’s National Review article, of the top 400 government officials in Saudi Arabia, only 1 person is Shiite. More regrettably, of the 120 members of the all-appointed Saudi parliament only two are Shiites.

While the international human rights organizations are accustomed to turning a blind eye to the inhuman discriminations imposed on the Saudi Shiites by the radical Wahabis, the pains and grieves of this subjugated minority are building up progressively.

In March 2009, a group of Shiite leaders threatened the Saudi government that they might pull out of the kingdom should the discriminatory measures against the Shiite minority remain in effect. Sheikh Nimr Baqer Al-Nimr had lashed out at the Saudi regime, calling on Shiites to “be ready to defend themselves” and brandishing the threat of secession from the oil-rich province of Qatif. The Saudi Interior Minister denied the Shiite leaders’ statements while he was in New York.

Of the sporadic protests to the unjustifiable mistreatment of Shiites in Saudi Arabia, the most prominent one was the Human Rights Watch’s warning to the Riyadh government to refrain from the further suppression of Shiites. In September 2009, the Human Rights Watch released a 32-page report in which the Saudi government was accused of “systemic state discrimination” against the Shiites in the areas of religion, education, justice and employment.

According to the report, “the Saudi government has long regarded its Shiite citizens through the prism of Wahhabi dogma or state stability, and brands them as unbelievers or suspects even their national loyalties”

“In employment, there are no Shi’a government ministers, senior diplomats or high-ranking military officers. And Shi’a students generally can’t even get admission to military academies,” the report says.

The corruption of Saudi government, however, is not limited to the extrajudicial and atrocious suppression of its Shiite citizens.

The longstanding, robust and unconcealed connections of the Saudi royal family with the terrorist gangs around the world, which was never challenged nor protested by the United States that considers itself a harbinger of war on terrorism, should be deemed another manifestation of Saudi’s governmental corruption. With its close ties to the Bin Laden family, doesn’t Saudi Arabia deserve to be listed in the U.S.-fabricated list of State Sponsors of Terrorism?

According to Michael Parenti, “throughout the eighties, when the United States assisted the Saudis in a giant military buildup of airfields, ports, and bases throughout the kingdom, many of the contracts were awarded to the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Binladen Group, founded by Osama bin Laden’s father.”

In “Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for bin Laden”, two French intelligence analysts, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, claim that the Clinton and Bush administrations impeded investigations of bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist group in order to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia and to maintain the stability of the oil market.

Prior to 1980, George Bush Jr. is a failed oil man. Three times friends and investors have bailed him out to keep him from going bankrupt. But in this year, the same year his father becomes President, some Saudis buy a portion of his small company, Harken, which has never worked outside of Texas. Later in the year, Harken wins a contract in the Persian Gulf and starts doing well financially. These transactions seem so suspicious that the Wall Street Journal in 1991 states it “raises the question of … an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Two major investors in Bush’s company during this time are Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s oldest brother, and Khaled bin Mahfouz.

According to Paul Thompson’s article in Amazon News, Mohammed al-Khilewi, the First Secretary at the Saudi Mission to the United Nations, defects and seeks political asylum in the US. He brings with him 14,000 internal government documents depicting the Saudi royal family’s corruption, human-rights abuses, and financial support for terrorists. He meets with two FBI agents and an Assistant US Attorney. “We gave them a sampling of the documents and put them on the table,” says his lawyer, “but the agents refused to accept them.”

Anyway, Saudi Arabia’s state corruption, its undeniable relations with the terrorist gangs and the family of Osama Bin Laden, its violation of human rights and its non-commitment to the principles of humanity is not hidden from the public opinions worldwide. King Abdullah had better do something about the black records of his support for the global terrorism and violation of human rights rather than issuing statements about the existence of countries on the world map. By putting Iran and Israel at the same level, King Abdullah revealed his impure nature to the world. Israel, a country that has been busy murdering, attacking and massacring for 60 years, and Iran that has been the most pacifist country in the region; are these two the same?

Muslim World Distribution, Sunni, Shia (Islam 101)

Muslim World Distribution, Sunni, Shia (Islam 101)